


Failure to Communicate

by perfectlyparadx



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Awkward Tsukishima Kei, Canon Compliant, Communication, Established Relationship, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Therapy, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, Yamaguchi Tadashi-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24707998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlyparadx/pseuds/perfectlyparadx
Summary: Relationships take work, they don't happen like in fairy tales. Sometimes you have a nearly break-up breakdown instead.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 5
Kudos: 79





	Failure to Communicate

'I feel like you're holding me at arm’s length.' he said sadly. His voice was soft, he wasn't angry or disappointed, he was tired and sad. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, staring at his feet as he leant on the countertop opposite his boyfriends turned back.

His boyfriend said nothing but straightened up, tense.

'I’m trying, you know, I’m trying to connect with you, to share myself with you, and I want that to be mutual, I want,' he paused, mouth open, looking for the words, 'I want us to work, I really do, but, I can't do this, I can’t be a part of us, if you're going to keep holding me at arm’s length.' He closed his mouth and looked up, gazing across the small kitchen space to the back of his boyfriend’s head. He could hear him breathing quietly.

'Kei, I need you to talk to me.'

His boyfriends’ shoulders fell, his blond head falling back as if to look at the ceiling.

Tadashi looked back at his feet.

'Kei-'

'Just - please Tadashi.' Kei's voice came out quiet and raw, Tadashi's head snapping up as the words caught on his ear. He didn't move, if he reached out to hold onto Kei now, he didn’t believe he'd have the strength to pull away. He could feel his heart wringing itself into pieces anyway.

'Do you want me to talk or are you putting your words together and you need me to wait?' Tadashi asked quietly. They both knew Kei wasn't good at emotional confrontation or putting voice to his own feelings, but that was exactly how they'd gotten to this point: Tadashi biting his tongue not to comfort his boyfriend of six years, standing in their shared kitchen, in their first flat, after weeks of Kei pulling away and brushing him off, after months of Tadashi sinking deeper into doubt over their future, after years of Tadashi doing all the emotional labour between them.

Tadashi noticed Kei's white-knuckle grip on the countertop, the way his shoulders shook unsteadily, but he rooted himself to the floor.

'Both, I think.' came the small answer.

'Which first?'

Kei loosened his grip on the counter and his head fell forward. His knees were weak, and his veins felt like ice.

'Can we sit down?' he asked quietly.

Tadashi nodded and shuffled over to the couple square metres than functioned as living room. He could hear Kei's footsteps behind him. He sat on the far edge of their sofa, hands folded in his lap, fidgeting with his nails. Kei collapsed on the other end, his tall form falling in on itself. Tadashi tried to ignore the guilt building itself a home in his stomach, he didn’t need to feel guilty about voicing his need for an emotional connection with his boyfriend he told himself.

'What do you mean I’m keeping you at arm’s length?' Kei said quietly, Tadashi could feel Kei's eyes on him now.

He sighed.

'I mean that you don't tell me how you feel, ever, Kei, and I know you, I know you're quiet about these things, I know you don’t like to talk about it or whatever, but I shouldn’t have to ask six times to get more than 'I’m fine' or 'I’m good', I’m your boyfriend for fuck sake,' Tadashi didn’t swear much, but he was so tired, he paused and looked to make eye contact with Kei, 'we've been each other’s best friend for more than ten years, Kei, I need an emotional connection with you that goes beyond 'I’m fine', and I don’t think I’m unreasonable for asking for it, right?'

Kei shook his head miserably, looking away from Tadashi's gaze.

'I love you, Kei, I love you so much, it hurts me so much to see you so upset right now, I know you have feelings, but the way you hide that from even me, it hurts so much.' Tadashi's voice broke at the end, he could feel hot tears welling up in his eyes, but he fought tooth and nail to keep it together.

'I can't keep doing this Kei.'

Tadashi watched as Kei's eyes snapped back to his, those eyes he'd fallen in love with as a 13-year-old kid, Tadashi knew those eyes as well as he knew his own, he'd spent hours staring into them, noticing how they looked in different light. After 8 years together and more than 10 years of friendship, Tadashi thought he'd seen everything but the fear in Kei's eyes felt like someone had punched glass shards into his heart.

Kei's head shook side to side, no.

'Don’t,' he whispered, 'don’t say that Tadashi please.'

Tears rolled down Tadashi's cheeks freely, he couldn’t move, couldn’t wipe them away, he needed Kei to understand how serious he was, he couldn’t break now, he'd just go back to accepting that this was all their relationship was going to be, and he couldn’t do that.

Kei reached out a hand to Tadashi's face, but Tadashi flinched away, heart ripping in two as he watched himself break Kei's heart right there. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want this at all, he didn’t want to hurt him.

Kei swallowed hard and withdrew his hand.

'I know you feel things Kei, so why won’t you share that with me?'

Kei's head was fuzzy with emotion, like the ocean had just crashed into a small rock pool and deposited too much water and plenty of sand and now the water was cloudy and spilling out everywhere. He couldn’t get words into a sentence, he couldn’t make his thoughts coherent, all that made itself clear was 'I love you' and 'I’m sorry'. Neither was good enough, and he knew it.

Kei didn’t have an answer for why he found sharing his feelings with Tadashi so difficult, he hadn't realised he'd been driving his boyfriend away from him, he didn’t know how to fix it, but he had to start somewhere or he'd lose Tadashi forever, and Kei didn't know who he was without Tadashi near him anymore. He hadn't known since he was at least 15, if not before.

He opened his mouth to speak, begging for the sincerest tone he could muster after years of sarcasm.

'Tadashi, look at me.'

Tadashi's eyes came up to meet Kei's.

'I’m so sorry Tadashi. I’m sorry I didn’t realise that I was pushing you away, I’m sorry I didn’t realise things had gotten to this point, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before, I’m sorry for all of it and I know, I know that doesn't even cover even a quarter of it. I am so sorry Tadashi, for everything I have done to make you feel like I was keeping you at arm’s length. You are my best friend, you are the most important person in my life, my world literally revolves around you and I know that nothing I say will erase the hurt I have done you; I know.’

Tadashi nodded slowly and Kei continued.

‘I never mean, ever, to keep you at arm’s length, but I will try so much harder in future, from now, to share how I’m feeling with you, if you let me try? Because I love you Tadashi, I love you so much, whatever you want, whatever you need, let me try, please?’

Kei felt a lump rise in his throat as he finished, looking at his boyfriend’s tear streaked face and dying inside to reach out and comfort him.

Tadashi nodded again, very slowly; an extremely watery, very tiny smile laced his lips as his chin quivered.

‘Can I touch you?’

Tadashi nodded harder and almost threw himself into Kei’s arms, sobs shaking his body harder now than the silent tears moments before. Relief flooded his system overwhelmingly.

Kei’s long arms wrapped around Tadashi, stroking his back and soothing him, letting Tadashi sob into his shoulder.

‘That was, so hard Kei, so hard.’ He sobbed.

‘I’m so sorry Tadashi.’ He mumbled, over and over again while his boyfriend sobbed, squeezing his own eyes shut to keep from crying. It didn’t work, it never does, but Kei didn’t care.

They stayed like that for a while, Tadashi bundled onto Kei’s lap, arms wound tightly round his neck, tears soaking the collar and shoulder of his shirt as Tadashi cried, his hair tickling Kei’s ear while Kei rubbed his boyfriends back and tried to ground himself to this moment, to remember everything Tadashi had said so he never made those mistakes again, Tadashi was too important for that.

Tadashi managed to stop the flood of tears and ease his shaky body and breathing after a while, but he didn’t make a move to get out of Kei’s arms. He didn’t want to. Instead he sighed and shifted so his legs were hanging over the sofa arm and his head was leaning against Kei’s chest, he could feel his heartbeat steadily against his skin.

‘Comfortable there Tadashi?’

‘Mhmm.’

Kei craned his neck to look down at Tadashi. His smile was of the barely there variety but Tadashi could see how it reached Kei’s amber eyes.

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

Tadashi stretched one hand up to his boyfriend’s face, running his thumb over Kei’s cheek. He felt Kei lean into his hand, turn slightly and plant a gentle kiss to his palm.

They were okay, they could work on this together, Kei had promised to work on it.

They stayed on the sofa all day, in mostly peaceful silence, just calming down and mulling over their nearly break up breakdown.

It was dark outside by the time Kei had anything useful to contribute again. He’d been thinking all afternoon, Tadashi had taken a nap on top of him so he hadn’t been able to do much else, but Tadashi’s words had been running around his head since the moment they left his mouth anyway so it was unlikely that Kei would’ve had anything else to do.

Tadashi yawned and blinked slowly, waking up to satiate the call of hunger more than anything else Kei suspected. A small, soft, sleepy smile crossed his lips and Kei felt his face flush like the first time they’d kissed, he was still so in love with Yamaguchi Tadashi, the idea that he’d nearly lost him to his own stubbornness made him want to scream.

‘Good evening.’ He said, quietly.

‘Good evening to you too,’ Tadashi grinned, ‘sorry I fell asleep on you.’

‘No need, it was nice, you’re cute when you’re asleep and it gave me time to think.’

‘I think I’m cute all the time,’ Kei rolled his eyes, the corners of his mouth still turned up in an unmistakable smile, ‘what were you thinking about?’

‘What you said, what I can do, us, that sort of thing.’

‘Oh yeah, anything I’m allowed to know?’

Tadashi started to dislodge himself from Kei’s arms and lap, which although Kei wanted to hold onto Tadashi forever, he was glad of since his leg had fallen asleep over an hour ago. When Tadashi had settled on the sofa next to him again, Kei rearranged himself to sit cross-legged opposite his boyfriend.

‘You can say if it’s silly or too much or something, but I want to show you that I really mean to work on this, to be better, for you,’ Tadashi was smiling, head tilted to one side in curiosity, ‘how would you feel about seeing a counsellor or a therapist, with me?’

Tadashi’s brown eyes searched Kei’s own for a moment.

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

Kei nodded.

‘I didn’t expect that. I, I think that’s a great idea,’ Tadashi said quietly; he paused again, searching Kei’s eyes for something.

‘I thought about going by myself, like a self-improvement thing, but I don’t want to hide anything from you…’

Kei felt uncomfortable saying it out loud. He knew it was stupid because it was Tadashi, but he still felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. But that was part of the reason to go. Tadashi was nodding at him.

‘Thank you, Kei.’

‘Please don’t thank me. If id noticed or done something sooner, we wouldn’t have gotten to this point.’

His boyfriend placed a hand on his knee and shook his head gently.

‘No reason to say things like that, okay?’

Tadashi looked expectantly at Kei.

‘Okay.’

Tadashi smiled and nods, standing up and stretching so his t-shirt rides up at his hips. Kei watches that sliver of skin disappear back under the t-shirt and sighs, uncrossing his legs and standing up with a few clicks. Tadashi giggles slightly and leans over, wrapping his arms around Kei’s waist. Tadashi had grown since they were in high school, but Kei had grown more. The taller of the two placed his hands gingerly on his boyfriend’s face, drawing his thumbs over the freckles on his cheeks before leaning down to kiss him ever so softly.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot I threw together this afternoon because I'd been thinking about how people in long term relationships communicate. I love these characters very much and I'm debating writing more in this set up around perhaps how Tsukishima and Yamaguchi got to this point? If you think that'd be a cool thing to read, let me know in the comments.


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